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Tuesday, 12 January 2010

What not to say …

Recently I was talking to someone about my Myeloma and the treatment that I was having and that I will be undergoing a bone marrow transplant in a number of weeks.

They explained that they understood what is involved as a member of their family had undergone the same thing. At this point I was keen to find out more as I haven’t yet met anyone who has actually gone through it and this could be my opportunity to find out more. They went on to explain that unfortunately the person had died and went on to further explain that they died during the transplant process and never recovered!

Note: as some people have difficulty understanding English, when I said. ‘that they died during the transplant process and never recovered’ perhaps I should have given a fuller explanation and continued the sentence … process and never recovered. i.e. they died while having the transplant. They never recovered from the transplant and then died. Hopefully that clears up any confusion!

I don’t think they realised what they had said and continued the conversation about my treatment etc. Fortunately I’m not the type of person that looks on the negative side of things. I could quite easily of been the type of person who broke down in tears (yes I know I have done that before) at the thought of dying in a few weeks.

When I told Charito, she laughed and said ‘fancy telling someone who is going to have a transplant that!’ Its a good job I know my wife well enough that she wasn’t going to get upset about it. Yo te amo mi esposa por siempre (however long that might be)

So the lesson learned here is ‘Think before you speak’ people like me are very sensitive, especially because of the drugs we are on. If it was one of my bad days I may quite easily could have burst into tears.

The person who it was, probably isn’t reading this, if they are, don’t feel guilty …. for too long :)

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About

This site in general is about my life since I found out I had cancer. I found out I have a rare form of cancer called Myeloma and decided to create this blog to keep everyone informed. I am going to grow the site so that it covers other things as well and see where it goes.

As a quick overview, I've now had two Stem Cell Transplants/Bone Marrow Transplants. One with my own cells given back and one with a sibling donor.